SENSITIZE ©

Hang-Gliding

His life in retrospect,
hang-glides down from the heights
on a sail of remembrance.
Spends ten minutes at Arnhem
with passing strangers -
it would be more, but boredom sets in
and they disengage,
trying kindly to retreat.
Thirty more he spends
in regalia at the Cenotaph
before his TV set, avoiding my looks.

He just filled in the space
between then and now
with trivia and the usual,
beers on a friday night
with mates from work
where he hated his boss,
the big game of a weekend.
Marriage, kids, divorce after domestics -
he never quite found a way
of keeping away from violence.
It took up residence in his fists
and a black spot in his mind.

And I recall -
a fringe of a smile to his lips
hiding the truth behind his teeth
and those soot black eyes
slowly fading into grey.
We were almost friends, I think.

An equally moving, in its own way, counterpoint to the poem about your mother.

"We were almost friends, I think" is a devastating line. It contains such a mass of lost opportunities; lost possibilities; lost hopes. Yet the 'almost' is better than nothing. It's a something to hold onto. A connection.